


take the weight from my shoulders

by tobeconvincedoflove



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Sickfic, adam is smart but he has doubts, adam is struggling, by popular request i present adam gets appendicitis, descriptions of vomiting, gratuitous greek myth references, imposter syndrome is real kids, ronan feels all the feels for a second there, sick!adam, writing gansey and adam's relationship is hard but i gave it ashot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 13:12:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconvincedoflove/pseuds/tobeconvincedoflove
Summary: Honestly, Adam is surprised it takes until junior year of college for something to fall to shit. Back in the trailer, even in the mild Virginia winters, he almost constantly had a cough or a sneeze or whatever bug was going around. It was better at Aglionby, more herd immunity and all that shit, but little food and little sleep doesn’t make for a stellar immune system.





	take the weight from my shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> by popular request, here it is. 
> 
> cw: descriptions of nausea, descriptions of imposter syndrome

Honestly, Adam is surprised it takes until junior year of college for something to fall to shit. Back in the trailer, even in the mild Virginia winters, he almost constantly had a cough or a sneeze or whatever bug was going around. It was better at Aglionby, more herd immunity and all that shit, but little food and little sleep doesn’t make for a stellar immune system. Then came college. 

Adam doesn’t even get the freshman plague. He thinks his body is too shocked at the prospect of having actual food and money that the fact that there’s an illness going around didn’t even phase him. 

Part of him thinks all two-and-a-third years of good health are coming around to kick his ass with whatever the fuck is wracking his body right now. It had started innocently enough; it’s round three of exams, and this one’s a doozy. Why the fuck is he taking algebraic topology again? But he got through three of the four exams, worked a double at the garage up by Central, and the fourth exam he knows he’s going to drop, anyways. He got A’s on the first two midterms, and there’s no final in the class, so there’s no point worrying about it.

Which is good, because his stomach is currently trying to exit his whole damn body. 

Adam barely made it back to his apartment after that last fucking exam before his knees hit the floor in front of the toilet. He remembers turning in the paper, remembers the feeling of his stomach rolling over and over on itself as Adam walks down Mass Ave, gloved hands tight around his abdomen. It takes longer than it should have, because Adam has to focus on keeping his mouth shut rather than moving forward. He knows he needs to call out of the garage, knows he needs to email S cubed and professors about psets and that paper due tomorrow, but as soon as his feet enter the apartment his body gives up.

The heat rushes to his forehead the second he starts heaving bile and coffee and water into the toilet in his shared bathroom. His stomach and back cramp and flex and ache, and tears are springing to Adam’s eyes with the force of the fit. By the time it’s finally over, Adam can barely lean himself back against the wall and breathe. The room is spinning, slowly and surely, and Adam knows if he moves he’s just going to fall back against the tiled floor.

He knows it’s not over. 

He recognizes that this started yesterday with a dull ache in his stomach and the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. But it’s so much worse now: he’s got a swirling stomach and the disturbing sensation that his head was floating somewhere high above his skull. The water he manages to drink from the sink only lasts fifteen minutes in his stomach. Of course, throwing up again hasn’t helped the whole otherworldly journey his head decided to go on. Adam is so dizzy and shaky that he’s just resigned himself to the bathroom floor for a few hours.

That night, Adam barely manages to text his boss that he’s sick and crawl into bed. After that, time slips into a syrup, sliding and stretching on whims. He can’t know how long he’s been laying there, and all he can feel is the cold and the heat taking turns rushing through his bones. His stomach can’t decide if it wants to swirl or stab itself or perform Simone Biles’ floor routine, and he wants to call Ronan but…

This is just a virus, a bug he’d picked off from a freshman or something. And he doesn’t need to be seen like this, unable to move, completely vulnerable to the pain and anything else. He doesn’t need to call someone. This will all pass. He doesn’t want to make Ronan worry over nothing. Adam is so out of it that doesn’t even hear the click of a key in the lock, the creak of the doors, or register the bed dipping just a little. Not until there’s something moving him, hauling him up into a sitting position.

“I’m gonna—” he mumbles, and then there’s something immediately under his chin (how? He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t have the energy to care) and he’s retching, throat burning and stomach lurching as pure bile makes its way into the container. When it’s finally over, there’s something blessedly cool smoothing back his hair before there’s a beeping sound. He hears other things… a voice, maybe, but it’s too hard to piece together.

Someone grabs his hand, presses his thumb against a cold surface that’s probably his phone.

:: ::

_“Is this Ronan? Adam’s super out of it and he has a fever of—hello? Hello?”_

Adam blinks. 

_“Hi, is this Richard Gansey? I’m Eliza, one of Adam’s roommates and he’s really sick. He’s been vomiting all night and his temperature is over 104—”_

:: ::

Eliza comes home from work to a quiet apartment. That isn’t normal; she thinks she remembers Jack and Jordan had said they going to pub night, but Adam is usually around. She’s tired, though, so she won’t complain. It’s only when she realizes the bedroom smells acidic that she thinks something might be wrong. And when she slips into Adam’s room, Eliza feels her heart speed up. Adam Parrish is curled up on the center of his bed in as small of a ball as he can make, shirt and hair and sheets and pillow soaked with sweat. Instantly Eliza is at his side, trying to move Adam, to see if he’s responsive, and when she does, she sees that Adam’s eyes are half-lidded. Adam lets out a sort of groan, and Eliza has taken care of enough younger siblings to know what that means. In a flash, she’s got the trash can underneath Adam’s chin and Adam is vomiting, retches harsh and violent.

Eliza just sits down next to her friend, leaning Adam’s trembling, feverish form into her shoulder, rubbing her back as she gently smooths back enough of his curls from his forehead to give the scan thermometer a clean reading. 

It comes back as 104.5° F. That’s not good. 

Eliza scrambles for Adam’s phone, presses his thumb against the lock button and finds his contacts. She calls Ronan, who hangs up before she can finish a sentence. So she calls his Harvard friend, Gansey, who tells her to call an ambulance, that he’ll take care of Ronan, that he’ll meet them at Harvard’s teaching hospital. Eliza does as he says, texts their roommates not to freak out if they see the ambulance, that she’s got it under control. She sits with Adam, stays on the phone with the paramedics, lets them up and into the room. 

They take one look at Adam and force him to lay flat on the bed. Someone presses down at a point on Adam’s stomach, and he immediately retches. 

Eliza thinks she hears the word appendicitis, but she’s too busy answering questions and relaying information to Gansey and trying to convince them to let her go with Adam to focus too much on it. She follows the stretcher and manages to get herself in the back of the ambulance before she even looks at Adam’s phone again.

Two calls from Gansey. Several texts in a group message, increasing in panic. A single text from Ronan. 

_On my way._

Eliza bites her lip, forces her hands to stop shaking as she looks over at Adam, who’s got two people by him; one is on radio with the hospital, the other is inserting an IV and trying to ask a half-conscious Adam questions. Eliza answers where she can; she tells them he’s deaf in his left ear, that he gets dizzy easily, that she doesn’t think he’s kept anything down for at least twenty-four hours but some of that might have been because he wasn’t putting anything in his body. She’s fielding questions from Gansey on Adam’s phone, their roommates with her own. It’s a well-established fact that Adam Parrish doesn’t _do_ this; he’ll work himself into exhaustion, but then he just needs to be directed to a bed and he’ll pass out and be all right again.

They ask about emergency contacts, and Adam’s breath hitches. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Adam gets out. “I changed it. It has to be Ronan. ‘N Gansey. Don’t… don’t call my parents,” Adam gets out. 

“Do you know the contact information for either of them?” The paramedic turns to Eliza. 

“I have both of their phone numbers. Richard Gansey is a Harvard student, and he’s on his way to the hospital right now. Ronan Lynch is… out of state. I think he’s coming, too.” Eliza tries to explain, and Adam seems to be enough with it to shoot her a grateful smile, but then another wave of pain overtakes him and his face is tightening up again. 

“Ronan? No—” Adam groans, tries to curl in on himself, but hands stop him. 

“Please, Adam, we need you to relax,” one paramedic urges, but when Adam is still coiled tight they do it for him, with a syringe of something added to the IV line that relaxes Adam’s muscles almost comically quickly. The same paramedic turns to Eliza in the same breath and asks, “What’s Mr. Gansey’s relationship with Adam? And Mr. Lynch’s?”

“Um, Gansey is a friend. Ronan is his boyfriend,” Eliza answers, hoping she’s not crossing some boundary Adam didn’t want crossed. 

“No parents. I have a restraining order against my dad. S’ gonna expire, but it’s still there now,” Adam reiterates, and Eliza goes silent. There’s a lot she doesn’t know about Adam, and she doesn’t want him airing his dirty laundry when he clearly isn’t aware enough to know Eliza can hear it. 

“Okay,” one paramedic says, and suddenly Eliza is tracing the multitude of small scars, the deaf ear, even, back to Adam’s dad. She doesn’t want to say it, in case it isn’t true. “We won’t contact them.” 

The last of the tension leaves Adam’s neck. 

“They can’t. They can’t,” Adam whispers, and Eliza has to bite back the urge to sift through court records and police reports in the state of Virginia until she knows what the hell happened to Adam. The rest of the ride, Eliza sits silently and watches Adam float in and out of consciousness. 

They get to the hospital, and Eliza is lead to the waiting room. 

She would recognize Richard Gansey anywhere. 

“Hi,” he says, giving what has to be a practiced smile. He’s wearing sweatpants and an old Harvard hoodie, and he smells like… mint? That’s weird. “I’m not sure if you’d remember me. I’m Richard Gansey, Adam’s friend. We spoke on the phone.” 

“Yeah, I think they need… they need…” Eliza has to force herself to breathe. She feels so ineloquent, staring Gansey down after what just happened. She inexplicably feels like she failed him. Adam, that is, but by in doing so she’s failed Gansey, too. “He said you’re an emergency contact. They need information from you.” 

“Okay. Where do I do that?” Gansey asks, his arm reaching out to touch Eliza’s shoulder comfortingly. 

“I don’t… they just took him back. I guess the desk?” Eliza knows she looks like a mess, knows she needs to pull it together, to get everyone on the right page. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“No. I can imagine the last hour has been stressful, to say the least. There’s no need to apologize,” Gansey says. “I’ll go take care of things with the desk.” Eliza just sits down. She still has Adam’s phone in her hands, unlocked. There’s nothing new in this group text; there’s nothing from Ronan. 

She’s only met Ronan once, but she can imagine. 

Eliza imagines a car racing from Virginia to Boston, sleek and black and blending in with the night as it speeds along dark streets and highways alike.

:: ::

Ronan is driving so fast that he can’t hear his phone buzz over the wind in his ears. He doesn’t want to hear it; he can’t look at the group messages or the missed calls or updates from Gansey. He knows he needs to, that if he just looks Gansey will tell him that Adam just has the flu, was just dehydrated and that nothing is actually wrong. He hasn’t looked at it since he dropped off Opal with the witches, because… what if it’s _not_ nothing? What if Adam is hurting, or dying, and Ronan isn’t there?

Ronan rubs the exhaustion from his eyes, one hand always on the wheel. 

He’s only four hours from Boston.

:: ::

“You don’t have to stay, I assume you’re busy with exams,” Gansey says, after forty minutes of filling out forms and sitting in silence next to Adam’s roommate.

“Oh, fuck. Adam has shit due today. I gotta email student support services,” Eliza says, immediately whipping out her phone. “Shit, who’s his dean again?” Gansey just watches Eliza tap out worriedly on her phone, copying Adam into the email. 

“Did they tell you anything, in the ambulance?” Gansey finally asks, once Eliza clicks the phone off again. “I need to tell Ronan something soon. Even if he doesn’t look.” 

“In the apartment, they pressed down on a spot on his stomach. I think they think it’s appendicitis,” Eliza says, brushing a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear most of it; they were talking fast and they were asking a lot of questions.” 

Eliza’s phone buzzes.

“Are you going to be okay here alone? I need to take care of some things school-wise for Parrish; we’re in a few classes together and have the same advisor. And I still gotta take that exam tomorrow.” She says it all with a small smile. “Let me know when you know more.”

Gansey walks her to the door. He likes her; she cared enough not just to check if he’s okay, not just to get help, but to go _with_ him, to update people she’s barely met and to stay with Gansey. He doesn’t have people like that at Harvard, not really. But he’s glad that Adam has them at MIT. She leaves with a hug, a smile, and a promise to let Gansey know when everything is sorted with school, so long as he keeps her updated, and it’s an easy deal to make. But when Gansey sits down, he stares at the phone in his hand, reads the texts as Blue sits on the train from New York with Henry and the lack of anything from Ronan. 

Ronan had called him, right before Eliza, just long enough to tell Gansey to get to the hospital to meet Adam and he’ll be there as soon as he can. It’s so similar to that night on Antietam Lane that Gansey feels his heart stutter in his chest. 

He tries to call Ronan, but he doesn’t pick up. Frankly, Gansey would be more worried if he did; he’s probably driving too fast to take his hands off of the wheel. 

It’s hard, sitting there alone. It’s as hard as it has ever been, between Ronan and Adam and Blue and Adam, again. Gansey feels himself start to panic, because after all of this he can’t lose Adam, not after the demon, after dying, after losing everything only to have it come back again. Gansey opens his phone, finds the graduation present from Adam. 

Adam didn’t have the money for graduation gifts, so instead he had kidnapped Ronan’s laptop for a week to make one for Gansey. He had went through photo album after photo album, everyone’s phones, even knuckling through an afternoon with Helen to make it happen, and the result is a video of pictures of all of them, of Gansey and his family, baby photos and all. There’s soft music in the background, music they all listened to in the back of the Pig, the BMW. There’s even Murder Squash. 

Gansey had cried like a baby the first time he watched it. 

He’s trying not to cry right now. He sees Adam smiling as he sits a grocery cart, Gansey steering and Noah and Ronan throwing things onto him. And he remembers late nights and bright smiles in the dark, driving with the wind in his hair and Ronan making jokes in the passenger seat. It’s walking through Cabeswater and Adam telling them some of its stories as he sifts rocks in a river: the sun is shining down, he and Blue are just sitting with their toes in the water and fingers intertwined. He thinks that Adam was at peace, then, too, the way Adam can only be if he’s with Ronan or in the magical forest. 

Even now, it’s so hard for Adam to just _be_. He’s magic born from dirt and dust, and yet he can’t see beyond that from which he comes; he’s always trying claw his way up to the surface, to clean air, broken nails clinging to each purchase, refusing to give up an inch, but he’s not buried in the earth, anymore. Adam isn’t as thin as he once was, no longer all hollow cheeks and protruding ribs, but that gauntness returns when there’s a payment due or there’s a round of exams and Gansey wishes Adam knows that he’s still made it, even if it’s not the highest score in the class, even if the end result isn’t an A. 

So Gansey waits.

:: ::

“Adam Parrish?” A doctor says, looking out at the waiting room with a tired face. Gansey rubs the sleep from his eyes and stands, gives his best approximation of what Ronan calls the ‘Dick smile’. “Hello. Let’s go to my office.”

Gansey silently follows her through the halls, sits at her desk and manages to try and look composed. In reality, his heart is beating so loudly in his ears that he has no idea if he’s going to be able to hear her. 

“Adam has a ruptured appendix. Upon admission, we thought it was a simple case of appendicitis, but the confirming CT scan revealed that the organ has, in fact, burst,” she says, and Gansey can only manage a tight nod. “A surgeon is being called in, but it will take an hour for her to get here, and then there’s surgery prep.” 

“Okay. What does the appendix rupturing change about the procedure?” Gansey asks. 

“There’s a risk of the infection spreading, and it makes the removal more difficult. We’ve started Adam on strong antibiotics, to try and get ahead of this, but he may still be sick after the procedure,” the doctor explains. 

“Can I see him?” Gansey asks. “Can I stay with him?” 

“Yeah, I’ll take you back. A nurse will probably run you through the pre-op paperwork, because Adam’s on some strong pain medication and he needs an emergency contact to sign,” she says, before standing and leading Gansey down another maze of elevators and hallways. 

But then he’s in a room, and he sees Adam and is by his side instantly. There’s a nurse fiddling with an IV, talking to Adam quietly, but she backs away when she sees Gansey appear; Adam’s face turns to Gansey and he tries to manage a small smile.

“Hi,” Adam says, and Gansey squeezes his hand. 

“How are you feeling?” Gansey asks, trying to take in how pale Adam is, how tired he looks. Adam seems like he’s all different kinds of miserable; his face is pinched, the tendons in his neck jumping out at odd intervals. 

“M’ okay. Sorry for the scare,” Adam mumbles, and Gansey just laughs. “I gotta have the surgery.” 

“You ever had one before?” Gansey doesn’t think Adam has, and that must make this even scarier. 

“Yeah. They had to fix my wrist when I was twelve, and he broke it bad,” Adam says, face creasing. “They didn’t call them?” 

“No, of course not,” Gansey soothes. “You switched your emergency contacts as soon as the judge let you. Ronan should be here in an hour or so.” 

“Ronan’s coming?” Adam’s eyes open fully at that, and he pulls himself into a seated position, both hands wrapping around his stomach. Gansey goes to help, but Adam shoots him the _look_ , the one that lets Gansey know they’re one wrong word from a fight. “What about Opal? The Barns?”

“Taken care of. He’s got a few farmhands, and Opal is at Fox Way,” Gansey says, and Adam just puts his head in his hands.”Just try to relax, okay?” 

“Can’t. It hurts,” Adam admits, and that’s right when the nurse reenters. She gives Gansey a clipboard full of information, and walks him through the potentially terrible complications that have low percentages of happening. Adam just fiddles with the blanket, face periodically creasing with a wave of pain. 

“The surgeon is on her way,” the nurse says to Adam, when it’s all done and signed. “In a little while, we’ll start getting you ready for surgery.” Her smile is kind, but it does nothing to relieve the anxiety ballooning up against Adam’s rib cage. 

“Oh, god,” he whispers, curls into a little ball and takes shaky breaths. Gansey runs a hand through Adam’s sweaty hair. 

“You’re going to be on the good drugs. Just a little while longer and then it’ll all go away,” Gansey promises, and that gets a little chuckle. “Ronan’s going to give you hell when you’re high.”

“He won’t. Fuck,” Adam says, squeezes his eyes shut. Gansey decides to stop talking, just sits with Adam and shows him shitty videos from Blue at college, vine compilations, anything to keep Adam from dwelling on how much pain he’s in. 

Exactly seven minutes (and another third of a vine compilation) after a nurse tells them that the surgeon has arrived, the door slams open. Adam jumps, then immediately groans. His eyes are screwed so tightly shut that he doesn’t even register that the door has opened because Ronan is there. He doesn’t realize until the agony has receded and he can feel Ronan’s hand clutching his own tightly. 

His eyes open, but he knows they’re half-lidded at best. Ronan is a little blurry, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Adam tries to smile, but it’s hard when he can’t see beyond the dark circles underneath Ronan’s eyes, can’t feel anything beyond the pulsing and burning sensation in his stomach. As if seeing Ronan has reconnected his muscles with his brain, Adam feels himself double over and that’s when the dry heaving starts. Gansey barely manages to locate the bin the nurses left and get it underneath Adam’s chin before he’s vomiting bile, gasping and choking. When it’s over, the tears from the pressure that throwing up builds in his muscles, behind his eyes, don’t stop. 

Ronan wraps his arms around Adam, a blessedly cold hand going to the back of Adam’s neck.

“Hey,” he whispers, running a hand down Adam’s spine. “It’s okay, Adam. It’s okay.” 

Adam doesn’t have a lot of energy, and he only manages another minute of heaving before he’s exhausted. He all but collapses against Ronan, unable to protest as Ronan lays Adam back against the bed. He grabs Adam’s hand, sits down next to Gansey. 

“M’ sorry,” Adam mumbles, but Ronan just gives him a look in response. He rubs circles in the space between Adam’s first finger and thumb, something that he’ll do idly all the time, meant to calm Adam down. It works. 

“He’s like a damn furnace,” Ronan says to Gansey. “Shouldn’t they be worried about that?” He’s banking on Adam being too out of it to actively process this conversation. 

“They have him on fever reducers. It should go down after the surgery,” Gansey responds, forgets that Ronan doesn’t know yet.

“Surgery?” Ronan’s face is white. 

“Adam’s appendix ruptured. They’re removing it,” Gansey quickly explains. “They should be back here any minute to prep him for the procedure.” 

“What the fuck,” Ronan says, not at all a question. His hand is suddenly on Adam’s forehead, smoothing back the damp hair, wincing just a little at the heat there. “How did it rupture?” 

“Was taking exams. Didn’t think about it ‘till yesterday,” Adam slurs out. “It’s gonna be okay. Gansey said I get the good shit.” 

“Yeah. But it only works if you rest,” Ronan says, prays that Adam Parrish isn’t enough Adam Parrish right now to spot the bullshit. He knows that the second he starts feeling less shitty his brain is going to go right back into ‘finals are approaching fuck panic’ mode, and that’s going to make it all worse. Adam’s face pales. “You gonna throw up again?”

Adam nods, and Ronan is holding the bucket with one hand, rubbing Adam’s back with the other when the nurses walk back into the room. Time speeds up for Adam, and he’s aware of hands on him, of new things in his IV that relaxes all of his muscles so he can’t throw up anymore, of something that spreads a pleasant chill through him, and before he knows it he’s being wheeled from the room, Ronan’s face disappearing as Adam’s unable to track him anymore. The lights are bright and the nurses are talking to him, but Adam can’t think beyond the sensation in his stomach, and the one talking is on his left side, anyway. 

When they ask him to count back from ten, Adam thinks of Ronan. He’s asleep by the time he starts saying the word ‘eight’.

:: ::

Adam wakes suddenly. One second, there’s nothing, the next, he can’t feel anything beyond the nausea clouding his head, his gut, and he’s vomiting onto himself until a nurse turns him on his side. It doesn’t stop. Everything is warm and fuzzy and blurred at the edges, but Adam feels pain erupt through his stomach with every heave.

He blinks.

Wakes, and someone hauls him up by his armpits and then he’s curled over a bucket, dry heaving. 

He blinks.

Repeat.

Adam spends the next forty-five minutes floating between unconsciousness and miserable fits of nausea, aggravated by nurses whispering in the corner, unable to do anything to stop it, or just unwilling. Adam wants to yell, wants someone to make this fucking shit go away, but he can’t say anything around the gagging sounds that leave his mouth, stomach unwilling to give up any more acid, brain unable to tell the muscles in his stomach and throat to leave it the fuck alone. 

Adam doesn’t even register that he’s passing out for a long one until he’s already gone.

:: ::

“—he was pretty miserable, might be out for a few hours yet,” a voice is saying. This time, waking up is slower, a steady beeping and the distinct feeling of being on the ocean during a rainy day playing itself out through Adam’s entire head and chest. Every limb feels heavy, every sensation dulled by something untraceable but unbelievably present.

“No, he’s waking up. It’s Parrish, you think he’s capable of sleeping for seventeen fucking hours?” Adam knows that’s Ronan. He wants to wake up, wants to open his eyes, but it’s such an effort that he doesn’t know if he can do it. But there’s a hand in his hair, carding gently through the strands, fingertips gentle and calming on his scalp, and Adam thinks the groan he hears comes from him. He doesn’t know how long it takes for the sensation to be enough to hold onto something enough to crack his eyes open. It’s dim in the room. He blinks, tries to clear his vision, and he finds that it’s Ronan’s hand in his hair, that Gansey is on the other side, Blue next to him by his head, Cheng passed out on a couch. 

“Welcome back,” Ronan says, giving Adam a small smile. “Think you can keep some water down?”

Adam realizes how dry his mouth is, manages a nod. He tries to shift so that he’s more upright than the slight angle of the bed, and immediately his face scrunches at the pull of something on his stomach, at the feeling of motion in his head. A hand goes to touch the area over the hospital gown, but Ronan’s hand intercepts it before it can get there. At least that’s what it looks like. He’s actually just reaching over Adam to press a button Adam hadn’t even realized his right hand was loosely curled around. 

“There. Pain meds,” is all the explanation Ronan gives, before his hands are on a remote and now Adam is more upright, because the bed also is. 

“The fuck just happened,” Adam mumbles, voice cracking from disuse and dehydration, probably. “What the fuck.” 

“You’re high, sweetie,” Blue says, a hand on Adam’s shoulder as Ronan places a covered cup with a straw into Adam’s left hand, the one without the the IV in it. It shakes a lot on the journey to Adam’s mouth, and it takes more tries and more interference from Ronan than it should have to get the straw in Adam’s mouth, but he groans as the cool water hits the back of his throat. 

“You didn’t drink a lot,” Gansey says with a frown when Adam hands the mostly full cup back to Ronan, but Ronan shoots Gansey a look.

“If he drinks a lot it’s just going to come back up again,” Ronan says, and Adam just takes the opportunity to allow his bones to melt back against the mattress. 

“It’s sloshy,” is what Adam comes up with. Ronan gives a ‘See?’ gesture, and Blue snorts. 

“Give it time. Try to not throw it up on yourself.” Ronan’s voice is dry. “Other than sloshy, how are you doing?”

“My head feels weird. Heavy,” Adam mumbles, his eyes half-lidded as he stares at Ronan and Ronan only. “M’ stomach is tight. Swirly. Wavey. Like the tilt-a… tilty thing,” Adam finishes. 

Ronan allows himself one laugh, until he sees Adam’s face tighten, his eyes narrow like what he does when he’s annoyed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed.” 

“C’mere,” Adam says. 

“I’m not getting in the bed with you. It’s small as fuck and the nurses and med students will murder my ass,” Ronan argues, but Adam reaches clumsily to grab Ronan and pulls. It’s weak, and does little to nothing physically, but Ronan sighs and acts like it’s a compelling case. “If you vomit on me I’m playing Murder Squash on repeat.” 

“M’ not gonna. N’ you wouldn’t,” Adam promises, shifts a little to make room and as soon as Ronan has carefully climbed onto the bed, Adam tries to wrap his arms around Ronan. 

“You have a fucking IV line,” Ronan says, trapping both of Adam’s hands in his own. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph this is a terrible idea.” 

“You’re right,” Blue says, already recording on her phone. Adam sighs, but he burrows down so his head is resting on Ronans shoulder and Ronan’s left hand is holding his right hand. 

“I’ll kill you, Maggot.” There’s no bite behind the threat. Adam reaches a clumsy hand to trace the dark circles on Ronan’s face, a frown appearing on his face. Ronan just grabs the hand, kisses the knuckles. “I’m fine, Parrish. You should get some rest.” 

“Wait, is he awake?” Cheng bolts upright, hair uncharacteristically flat. “Hey, Adam.” 

“Hi, Henry,” Adam murmurs, unwilling to lift his head from Ronan’s shoulder/clavicle/chest for even one second. 

“Oh, this shit is too cute,” Cheng says, smile slowly forming. “You guys are _nauseating_.”

“Adam, you okay?” Blue asks, noticing the color of Adam’s face changing a little. Adam manages a nod, but his mouth has become a thin line. “I’m going to go get a doctor.” 

“They gave him an anti-emetic—” Gansey starts, but he can’t even finish the sentence before the water Adam had drank only minutes ago is on Ronan’s sweatshirt. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry–” Adam starts, but then he’s dry-heaving again. Gansey grabs the bin, Ronan helping Adam sit up, but now it’s just wretched heaving, air being forced out and in too harshly to not be agonizing. 

When the doctor comes back, there are tears in Adam’s eyes. Ronan’s hand is on his back, rubbing circles as Adam gags and struggles, the muscles in his neck and back jumping with every heave. He’s mumbling apologies between heaves, and when it’s finally done, he just stares blankly at Ronan’s sweatshirt, even as Ronan strips it off and throws it to the floor. He doesn’t care, is only focused on Adam, but he’s forced to the side as the doctor and goddamn team of residents hover around the bed. 

“Ronan—” Adam starts, but he quiets as the doctor exposes the surgical area. “Oh, fuck, that looks painful.” 

“Please tell me I’m not the only one who will never forget that just happened,” Henry says to Blue, who nods. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Ronan seethes, trying to listen as the doctor starts to discuss Adam’s post-op complications. 

“He should be okay in a few days, but we’d like to keep him the next twenty-four hours or so, until he can keep down fluids on his own,” the doctor finishes with, and Adam frowns. 

“I have school,” he says, tries to sit up a little but winces at the pull in his gut. 

“It’s taken care of,” Ronan says. “You’re fine. You don’t have any more exams until finals.” The second part is said with a serious look at Adam; it’s a well-known fact that the venn diagram depicting Adam Parrish and rest is just two separate circles. Ronan has to watch how he approaches this: if it were back like it was before, when Adam was both volatile and trapped, any attempt to get him to slow down would be met with vitriol and shouting and days of silence. It’s not the same, but Ronan thinks there’s a part of Adam that hasn’t been able to leave that part of Henrietta behind. He’s made it, has ticked off every fucking thing he’s decided he has to do to get out, but it’s not enough. Adam is a student at MIT, but it’s not enough. He’s so used to fighting that he doesn’t know when the battle is over; he has to be perfect, has to work himself to the bone because if it isn’t it means he’s wasting his scholarship, his time, is going to turn into his father. 

Ronan wants to shake his goddamn shoulders and make Adam take a break and _breathe_. Adam isn’t holding on by the tips of his fingers; he has money to eat real food and a real job and real job and graduate school prospects and he has to know that he’s not in danger like he used to be. If he misses one shift it doesn’t mean his grocery bill is cut in half, if he misses one day of school it doesn’t mean that he’s drowning in make-up work. Ronan doesn’t know how Adam doesn’t see that. It’s engraved into Adam, has been burned into his heart and lungs and etched into his ribs that he’s an imposter in his own life, that everything good that has happened to him is a mistake. Adam, who has had to work so hard for everything he has achieved, convinced that it’s just jokes and mistakes piling up on his shoulders. There has always been so much weight that Adam has been forced to carry. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before he crashes back to the Henrietta dirt, that what he was born into he must be doomed to return to. He can’t let go, but he doesn’t know how much more he can take before it becomes too much. 

Ronan has tried. He’s _tried_ so hard to work on this with Adam. He knows there are some burdens that he cannot lighten, but Ronan thinks Adam doesn’t need to play Atlas, anymore. Even Atlas struggles under the burdens of the universe, but Adam is not doomed to hold his own by himself, anymore. He has friends here. He has Blue and Gansey and, yes, Henry. He has Ronan. 

Adam deserves so much, Ronan thinks, but most of all he deserves to exist, to not struggle with simply being. 

So Ronan will stay. 

He stays when the trio goes back to Gansey’s dorm to sleep (and not-sleep, but Ronan refuses to think about that). Adam still can’t keep water down longer than half an hour. He’s quiet, too, and Ronan worries it’s not just because he’s exhausted. 

“How’s school?” Ronan asks at two in the morning. Adam is curled up next to him, trying to stop shaking after the latest vomiting fit. 

“Hard,” Adam admits, his voice a mumble. “There’s so many brilliant people here, Ronan.”

“Yeah. You knew what you signed up for,” Ronan says, hand playing with Adam’s hair. Adam lets out a watery chuckle.

“There are people who have been doing college-level math since they were twelve, International Math Olympiad gold medalists, people who consistently place in Putnam. I feel like I’m barely treading water, Ronan,” Adam admits, voice cracking. 

“You’re not. You’re meant to be there,” Ronan says. “You don’t need to be perfect to be successful. You’re a goddamn MIT student. That means a lot by itself.” 

“I can’t rely on the name, Ronan. I don’t have the credentials,” Adam says. “I feel like it’s never going to be enough. I started too late. And now I’m never going to catch up.” 

“You don’t even like the math that’s on Putnam. It’s not a comparison,” Ronan tries, pauses as he moves an arm to hold Adam tighter. He thinks this might be his chance. “Look, before you get mad, hear me out.” 

Ronan takes a breath, waits until Adam is looking at him, entwines his fingers with Adam’s. 

“I understand that you want to make your own name. I understand how much this school and math means to you. I don’t get it, but I understand it’s important. I just, I wish that you could see you don’t have to fight so hard anymore. There are so many doors that have opened because of the work you put in, and it’s okay if you get a B in an upper-level math class. It’s okay if you need to take a break to rest, to take care of yourself. I just, I hate seeing you work yourself into the ground,” Ronan says, playing with Adam’s hand nervously. 

“You don’t get it.” Adam’s voice sounds wrecked. “I feel like I’m the dumbest person in the room. All the time. I’m the scholarship kid from rural Virginia taking a spot away from brilliant people from better areas of the country, the world, just because I fill out some fucking diversity quota.” 

“That’s not true. Parrish, I know it’s hard, but it’s going to work out, okay?” Ronan presses a kiss to Adam’s forehead. “You’re crushing it, man. I couldn’t pass a single fucking class here, even if I tried my fucking hardest. I’m just saying that you don’t have to go through it alone, man. We’re all here if you need us.” 

“You drove all the way from the Barns just ‘cause Eliza called,” Adam says, a small smile flickering briefly across his face. He rests his head against Ronan’s shoulder. “I would have been fine. You didn’t have to drop everything.”

“I wanted to. You were hurting,” Ronan says. “I’ll always come, if you need me.” Adam presses his lips to Ronan’s, hand shaking as it presses against Ronan’s chest. 

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.” Adam’s voice is soft, wrecked. “I’m a fucking mess.”

“We both are,” Ronan snorts. “We’ll be a goddamn mess together. Got it, Parrish?” 

Adam nods. It’s only the tip of the iceberg, but Ronan feels Adam exhale against him, his eyes flickering closed. It’s all Ronan needs from Adam. Exhale, then inhale. If it happens enough times, it might become easier. They just need time, put some space between who they were at fifteen and who they are now.

Exhale. Inhale. Repeat.

Adam’s breathing evens out in sleep. Ronan just presses another exhale, a kiss to the brow as it unfurls, cards his fingers through Adam’s sweaty hair and rests his chin on top of the curls. 

He allows himself a breath. Inhale. Exhale. 

It feels just a little bit easier.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please lmk if this is what you thought it was going to be. yell at me in the comments. please. 
> 
> i'm sorry if any weird MIT lingo slipped in again. 
> 
> if you have something you want to see, i'm taking prompts here or @ my tumblr (thoseunheard).


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